


Scar Tissue

by TheProdigalSapphist



Category: Holby City
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, I hope you like it, My first fic, Scar Tissue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 13:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheProdigalSapphist/pseuds/TheProdigalSapphist
Summary: Serena muses on scars.





	Scar Tissue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I said I’d never write fics but here we are. It’s my first ever fic so please be nice and please leave a comment if you enjoyed it :)
> 
> This idea struck me after I found myself wondering how different my life would be without some of the scars on my body. I thought it would be the same for Berena.
> 
> NB. I wrote this before we knew it was actually Bernie with the caesarean scar.

Serena woke up before her alarm, roused by the bright morning light sneaking around the curtains. 

She stretched and rolled over, surveying her partner’s sleeping form. Bernie had rolled away from her in the night, exposing her back. 

Serena reached out and touched the scar between Bernie’s shoulder blades. After years of exploring Bernie’s body she’d declared this scar was her favourite one; a small half moon no bigger than her little finger caused by a stray piece of shrapnel. Serena traced the outline of the scar and Bernie shifted a little, her hair falling away to reveal the scar on her neck; the scar that brought them together. 

Bernie’s body was a tapestry of violence, each scar a badge of honour; from the IED that landed her in Holby to the scar on her palm from basic training. Serena thought of them as little road maps that had led them to each other. She worshipped those scars. 

Her relationship with her own scars was more complicated - they reminded her of what she had lost. Her Cesarean scar and stretch marks confronted her each morning when she looked in the mirror, a permanent reminder of the daughter she'd never see grow up. 

Serena wasn’t ashamed of this scar, no. She’d never been embarrassed about it with lovers, never concealed it. She was proud that her body had grown a child. But she couldn’t bring herself to look at it after the accident. At first, she covered the scar; her emotions too wild, her loss too great. She didn't need another reminder of Elinor. 

But Bernie had always paid attention to this scar. And reluctantly with time Serena had allowed her to touch it again, to celebrate it once more. 

Bernie kissed the scar when they made love, each kiss a declaration of understanding. Because Bernie knew what the scar represented - that Elinor was etched onto Serena’s skin forever, proof that she was still a mother despite no longer having a child. 

They’d never spoken about the marks on Serena’s back, the marks Adrienne had made. To Bernie, Serena’s body was a tapestry of love between mother and child - she’d suffered for those she loved. 

And Bernie of course liked to leave her own marks; little bites and bruises that branded Serena as hers. She felt smug in the knowledge that Serena went to work with these little tokens hidden under her clothing. 

Serena reached out and brushed her fingers across the scar on Bernie's neck. How different their lives would be without this one little scar.

**Author's Note:**

> The line about Bernie’s body being a “tapestry of violence” comes from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I fell in love with that line when I read the book.


End file.
